SEJONG, Dec. 18 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s foreign workforce has reached a historic milestone, surpassing 1 million workers for the first time, with nearly half employed in mining and manufacturing sectors, according to government data released December 17.
A Statistics Korea report on immigrant residency and employment showed that as of May, the number of foreign residents aged 15 and older reached 1.56 million, marking a 9.1% increase (130,000) from last year. Of these, 1.01 million were employed, up by 87,000 from 2023.
The surge in foreign workers follows an increase in work visa quotas. While growth slowed during the COVID-19 pandemic, numbers rose again after the government increased quotas for non-professional employment visas (E-9) last year.
Korean-Chinese workers constituted the largest group at 341,000, followed by Vietnamese workers at 123,000. By visa type, non-professional employment visas led with 302,000 holders, followed by overseas Korean visas (258,000) and permanent residency (105,000).
The manufacturing and mining sectors employed the largest share of foreign workers at 461,000, while retail, accommodation, and food services accounted for 191,000, and business, personal, and public services employed 144,000.
Among the employed foreign workers, 94.6% (956,000) were wage workers. Temporary and daily workers made up 34.4% (329,000) of wage workers, significantly higher than the national average of 26% for all workers. The majority of foreign wage workers earned between 2 and 3 million won monthly, with 354,000 earning over 3 million won.
While 84.3% of foreign residents reported satisfaction with life in South Korea, 17.4% experienced discrimination based on their nationality or Korean language ability in the past year. Only 15.3% of those who faced discrimination sought remediation, with 39.3% reporting successful resolution—a 2.6 percentage point increase from the previous period but still below 50%.
Among the 875,000 foreign residents with children, averaging 1.6 children per family, 35.7% reported difficulties with their children’s education in the past year. Major challenges included helping with homework (53.1%), managing school communications (35.9%), and addressing academic performance issues (18.3%).
The number of naturalized citizens who received citizenship within the past five years remained steady at 51,000, with 34,000 employed.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)